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`That's capitalism!' Scottish Socialist Party election broadcast: `No cuts, no wars, for an end to corruption'

April 29, 2010 -- The Scottish Socialist Party is standing in 10 seats across Scotland in the UK general election on May 6.The video above was broadcast on BBC TV on April 23.

SSP election manifesto: `For an independent socialist Scotland'

No cuts, no wars, for an end to corruption

On May 6, 2010, voters will be offered a dismal choice of cuts, sackings
and wars by politicians tainted by corruption, duck houses and other
expenses fiddling.

All three Westminster parties are in a race to see who can make
the deepest cuts while the Scottish Nationalist Party wrings its hands and blames London.

They all recommend cuts to vital public services which will hit
the most vulnerable hardest and directly threaten the jobs of 100,000
Scottish workers.

In contrast the unequivocal message from the Scottish Socialist
Party is that there is an alternative which avoids cuts and insists
instead that the greedy pay for the disaster they created, that also
ends our involvement in the Afghan war and offers jobs and justice not
misery and war.

This belief is reflected in our program for a Scotland which
aims to meet peoples’ needs, not pander to the rich, for people not
profit.

100,000 jobs are directly threatened by the cuts promised by
the Westminster parties and vital services for our most vulnerable
citizens will go.

We say that faced with such a threat words are not enough—action
is needed. Scotland needs nothing less than a resistance movement of
mass peaceful protest on the scale of that which defeated the poll tax.
We will bring all the experience of the SSP to build such a movement.

Jobs for youth

The spectre of mass unemployment has returned twenty years
after Margaret Thatcher was ejected from office. Many communities in
Scotland are still suffering from the legacy of the 1980s with the
poverty, heroin addiction, alcohol abuse and crime that goes with this
chronic joblessness.

Today the SSP says: "Mass unemployment no more." Instead of
slashing Scotland's budget, the SSP will fight for emergency funding to
protect our young people from becoming another wasted generation.

Let's get out of Afghanistan

This is a senseless military occupation which damages
Britain's international reputation and does nothing to make the world a
safer place. We are occupying a country that doesn't want us to be
there. More than 50,000 innocent Afghan civilians have been killed. Some
280 British soldiers have also died. All the polling evidence suggests
that 70% of the population here want our armed services withdrawn. The
Scottish Socialist Party gives voice to that majority.

Clean up the Westminster 'midden'

In just 12 months Westminster has gone from "the mother of
parliaments" to "the mother of all corruption".
The public has watched open mouthed as MPs attempt to justify
obscene expenses claims which would get an ordinary worker sacked. MPs
have repeatedly shown how they are all out of touch with the people
they pretend to represent.

For the SSP the answer is simple and it is to end the
circumstances where becoming an MP brings a huge salary and expenses. We
have long argued that MPs should live on the wage of those they
represent. Our members of the Scottish parliament did just that at Holyrood thus keeping them in touch
with the real lives of voters.

For a green, socialist republic

The Scottish Socialist Party is a pro-independence party -- no
ifs, buts or maybes. We say "Yes" to an independence referendum and "Yes" to
independence.

We will work with other pro-independence parties to deliver a
resounding referendum Yes vote.
Beyond that, we stand for an independent socialist republic
where the wealth is fairly distributed; where protection of the
environment is paramount.

Such a republic would prioritise the needs of people over
profit and our environment over the greed of profiteers.

The development of our colossal natural resources would be
publicly owned to ensure the skilled jobs required are based in Scotland
and the profits generated used to provide services not multinational
profit.

All citizens would be equal irrespective of gender, race,
religion or sexuality in a country where the economy is no longer driven
by greed and profit.